Racist schemes called for Voting Rights Act

COMMENTARY

RICK CASEY, Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle |
April 29, 2009

As the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments today over a key provision in the Voting Rights Act in a case brought by an obscure Austin-area utility board, young Houstonians and newcomers may wonder why this city and all of Texas are covered by a law designed to protect the rights of minority voters and candidates for public office.

After all, our last mayor was black. In the mayor’s race that is quietly under way, a substantial part of the white business establishment appears ready to support black attorney Gene Locke.

Blacks hold two of the nine City Council seats elected from districts and another two of the five elected citywide — a healthy percentage given that blacks were 25 percent of the city’s population as of the 2000 census, a percentage that has not grown substantially.

But before Texas became one of the states covered by the Voting Rights Act, Houston’s white power structure employed an array of clever devices to keep blacks from office.

The techniques are cataloged in a 1972 book by retired Rice sociologist Chandler Davidson, called Biracial Politics. I have room for a small sample here.

Ruling opened door for Barbara Jordan

When President Lyndon Johnson strong-armed Congress into passing the original Voting Rights Act in 1965, he exempted Texas.

But when the act was renewed in 1975, explained University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray, Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen was gearing up for a presidential race and needed support from liberals and minorities in the Democratic primary. With his blessing and with a push from formidable U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan, Texas was added to the Southern states covered.

Jordan had already benefited from a Supreme Court ruling that thwarted one of the stiffest barriers to minority representation.

Until 1965, state representatives in large urban counties in Texas all ran countywide for a “place” on the ballot.

That meant that the same white majority elected all 12 Harris County state representatives. Jordan ran twice and lost both times.

But a 1962 Supreme Court ruling outlawed this scheme, and additionally required Texas to draw state Senate districts roughly equal in population. This gave Harris County three senators and part of a fourth instead of just one.

Jordan promptly won one of the Senate seats.

Houston’s eight-member City Council was all elected citywide, although five were required to live in individual districts.

Davidson said the result was that from post-Reconstruction Days until the Voting Rights Act took effect here, only one black served on the City Council — and he had the backing of some of the business leaders who wanted to ward off criticism.

In 1975, the city wanted to annex all-white Clear Lake. Because it was now under the Voting Rights Act, it had to get permission from the Justice Department.

Election Day moved

To avoid diluting the minority vote, the Justice Department required the current system in which nine council members are elected from districts.

In 1958, a black woman, Hattie Mae White, was elected as an HISD trustee, but only because election required only a plurality, not a majority.

She was joined in 1964 by Asberry Butler, who was black, and by white liberal Gertrude Barnstone, also elected by pluralities.

The next year the Legislature passed a law changing Houston’s school board election from coinciding with the presidential election to the lower-turnout municipal election, and required a runoff. White lost her next election.

At the end of the legislative session, Davidson reported, the bill’s author, HISD teacher-legislator Henry Grover, was promoted to administrator and his salary doubled.

With the likes of Grover and his backers, Houston didn’t need a Bull Connor or his dogs.